Tuesday, March 17, 2020
Monday, March 16, 2020
Building Cities!
What's going on everyone!?
Today for the #2019gameaday challenge I played a solo game of Carcassonne on the mobile app with 2 AI and actually won!
It was a good game and very close until the ene but some wisely placed farmers ended up winning me the game!
As one of my favorite games I don't think I'll ever get sick of this one!
As always, thank you for reading and don't forget to stop and smell the meeples! :)
-Tim
Friday, March 6, 2020
Ween : The Prophecy - Alternative Paths And Final Rating
Written by Alfred n the Fettuc
Before submitting WEEN to the PISSED rating, we need to study the alternative paths that you can take through the game. I counted two (but I might also have missed something), one using the fish amulet to breathe underwater, and the other attainable by choosing the second door when you exit the temple, just before the ant garden.
Restarting the game, I scan once more every screen to see what I could have missed but don't find anything before the lake itself (I still don't know if I can do anything with the bolt I found on OHKRAM's balcony by the way). Turns out that on the first venom/pollen puzzle, there is a very tiny leave hidden in the corner of the screen.
Considering all the pixel-hunting I had to do in order to progress later in the game, I'm really surprised I didn't spot the leaves on my first play-through. I think at this point of the game, I didn't really need to search every nook and cranny of every place I went. Anyway, I make the monster appear on the bridge, get the feather, use it to make the venom and pollen appear in the chest, and mix a potion of growth out of the two reagents. And what do you know…
I call URM and give him the strawberries. Joyful, he drops a small ingot of gold that fits perfectly with the half-statue to make a complete fish amulet. Guess it means that URM had the amulet since the very beginning and just didn't give it to me because I didn't have enough strawberries in my pocket… stupid greedy bat. Using the amulet on the water allows me to enter it and breathe underwater. URM comes back afterwards and get back the Elixir from me, so the hint of an alternative path works whatever path you choose. Nice touch.
Just before arriving on this screen, I witness a little cutscene with a big barracuda-like fish eating some kind of metal pole. When I click on the seaweeds on the left of the screen, a little fish appears and get eaten by the same barracuda-like fish, that WEEN describes as a wurk, a greedy fish that could eat anything. I'm starting to suspect that we'll have to make him eat the electric fish one way or another. Clicking on the staircase sets a trap where iron bars appear from the wall to stop me from going up. Messing with the electric fish gets me zapped. I spend some time looking around until a little bug appears… it's our friend the useless mosquito sent by KRAAL!
I catch it pretty easily and feed it to the electric fish… Just when I was wondering if it meant that taking this alternative path would make the mosquito disappear from the rest of the game, another one quietly arrives and lands at the exact same place. I'm guessing KRAAL has an infinite army of mosquitos underlings for some reason. Knowing that the electric fish seems to love mosquitos, I get the other insect and drop it near the hole where the wurk is hidden. It exits and eats the fish, resulting in death by electrocution. I grab the glass piece on the ground and cuts the wurk open.
I use the steel bar found into the belly of the beast in the small hole near the door, making it bigger. Clicking on the hole now makes another marine monstrosity appear as a moray eel tries to catch me. Messing with the seaweeds on the left make another innocent fish wander around and gets eaten by the moray eel.
Inside the fish I find a harpoon point (what do they eat in that lake?) that I combine with my metal bar to make a perfectly fine harpoon. Trying to use it in the moray eel hiding place doesn't work though. Looking in the seaweed to find another fish, I catch it with my harpoon before it gets eaten and then feed it to the moray eel, hoping it would choke on my harpoon, but no. It just eats the fish and spits back my harpoon. What a nice monstrosity. Pixel-hunting the place once more, I discover a crack on the side of the barred staircase. Destroying a part of the wall with my harpoon, and trying to climb the staircase once again breaks the trap. However, the iron bars are now stuck in the stone.
Using my trusty harpoon, I catch another fish from the seaweed and put it between the iron bars. It works! The moray eel catch the harpoon point and forces the iron bars open with its voracity. Now that's what I call one hungry fish! Finally, I'm able to exit this horrible place and get to the entrance of the dragon temple with the wasp trap and the snake.
So all in all, this path allows me to avoid the goblin-looking statue with its sword and the Orivor puzzle. I kinda prefer the underwater path as I think the puzzles are more fun. However, I'll probably never go in a lake again in my life now that I've seen what's in it…
Second alternative path : Laser-eye petrifying dinosaurs
After getting the three grains of sand and exiting the temple (and before the two dimwits lost my haversack), I was presented with two doors. The door on the right, that I chose, brought me to the ant garden puzzle where I had to mix a digitalis meal for the ant queen. Selecting the door on the left brings me to another garden, where some kind of huge laser-eyes dinosaur petrifies URM the second we get in!
PETROY appears and tells me that KOR, the deity that's pictured on the left, can help URM, but I need to give him offerings. Namingly, the power of thunder, the star of light and the wealth of the tide… Just that. I grab what appears to be a net (probably in order to get the wealth of the tide. I knew I should have brought another dead fish from the underwater segment). Trying to operate the well tells me that I need a handle to work the pulley. The right of the screen allows me to exit to another part of the garden.
Getting the grill allows a huge orange crab to exit the trap. I grab a fish from the river with my net. Clicking a second time on the river makes the fairy of the river appear! She tells me that in her river lives a crab with sharp pincers (doh!), and that great riches can be found in the water. Trying to use the grill as a sieve doesn't work though. Not finding anything else, I go back to the statue of KOR in order to offer him the fish I just caught. No reaction. So I guess the wealth of the tide refers to actual wealth. Pixel-hunting the first screen, I find that I can remove the hoop from the barrel.
Using the grill in the hoop, I make an actual sieve. Using it on the river allows me to get a few gold nuggets. Going back to the statue, I can put the nuggets at the feet of the statue but nothing happens. I guess he wants the three elements before doing anything. I realize I still have a fish in my inventory and go back to the river. Putting the fish in the trap next to it makes the big orange crab come back in order to devour this meal. I catch the crab (with my bare hands… WEEN is clearly braver than me). Not finding anything to do with it, I try using my other inventory items everywhere. Putting the sword in the hand of the statue, it attracts lightning! After hitting the sword, the lightning falls on the ground and I can grab it in my hands.
Trying to put the lightning on the pedestal to offer KOR the "power of thunder", WEEN tells me that he's got far better things to do with this object for the moment… So first, thank you, protagonist, for this hint but could you please do as you're told? Secondly, ok, what else can I do with a solidified lightning? Use it as a handle for the well of course! I pull up something that looks like a chest from the bottom of the well and I can put the lightning on the pedestal afterwards. Thank you, WEEN! The chest is locked by a heavy metal chain that I use my crab to cut. It still doesn't open, though, so I get my sword back and use it as a lever to open the chest (swords used as levers during the game : 4). Inside the chest is a key that I use to open the lock under the beast statue. In it I find a sun effigy, which is sure to be "the star of light". I put it on the pedestal and KOR reanimates URM, who doesn't take long to be his normal self again!
And then I arrive at the garden with the view on Volcano Island, the worm and the giant mushrooms. I tend to prefer this path also to the one with the ant queen, if only because I spent way too much time on the ant queen screen turning my copper ball into a pipe and a cauldron and vice-versa…
FINAL RATING
Finally, the moment we've all been waiting for. I tend to be a bit afraid of the PISSED rating because I know this game is fondly remembered by many, but I'll try my best to give it a fair trial.
Puzzles and Solvability
The puzzles are pretty fun overall. The game is a nice suite of inventory-based puzzles and there are a lot of them. However, the game is a bit on the easy side and a few of the puzzles are repetitive without enough differences between them. The room with the fireflies comes to mind where you're supposed to repeat the same tedious steps five times. The other problem is that you stumble a bit too often on the solution instead of wanting to do something and successfully do it. That's usually the issue with games with a single "action" button (as opposed to a list of verbs or a parser), in my humble opinion, but in this kind of games where things happen because "magic", I think that clicking on random things and see what happens is a big part of the fun, like a less chaotic version of Gobliins 2.
When the game avoids being too easy, however, it tends to fall pretty quickly in the "obscure" territory. The dragon battle, for example comes to mind, or the potion mixing.
Thorough pixel-hunting is a huge part of the game as well and it can be infuriating at times, especially when you think you have the good solution and can't make it work. Globally, the game could do with a little more hints, even subtle ones. Too often was I stumbling in the dark just trying to make something happen with no clear objective of my goal.
Having two branching paths (even if it's for a short period of time) is great though, and adds replayability, which is still rare enough in adventure games to be underlined.
Final Score : 6. Overall, the puzzle design is solid, pleasant and there are a lot of things to do. A few roadblocks are difficult enough without being unsolvable. The fact that you are too often stumbling in the dark is what prevents it to get a 7, but just quite.
Interface and Inventory
As was noted by Ilmari in his playthrough of Gobliins 2, the interface shares some similarities, which is a novelty for a Coktel Vision game. It's probably because it works. You can combine inventory items, use items on yourself, etc. I think the guys at Coktel were working on something that would be used in all of their games at the time if only because they left the "fast movement" icon in the menu without using it once in the game. It was Coktel's take on something similar to the SCUMM engine, even if not as brilliant.
The interface is overall pretty functional, but it has a few flaws that really get irritating in the long run. I've rambled enough on the transformations of the copper ball/sword/pipe/cauldron. It's because you do that ALL THE TIME. And what is a charming little animation in the beginning of the game are excruciating when you do that fifteen times in a row because you're trying to solve a puzzle and don't know which tool to use. The fact that you have to go through the copper ball transformation every time you want to change the sword into a cauldron is more irritating than it has any right to be.
There are other issues as well. Using the glue on the firefly works but not the other way around. Granted, it makes more sense in this order but when you're trying to find the solution to an obscure puzzle, you don't necessarily try the two sides of an item interaction. There is also a little "slugginess" to the whole game (like a few milliseconds too long) that makes the whole thing a little too slow for my taste. But it might also be the emulator I used so I won't take it into account.
The integrated joker system is a nice touch. In a time before the internet, it was always a solution to make some progress in the game if you're completely stuck. I tried it here and there after my playthrough, though, and it could beneficiate from a little subtlety by guiding you on the right path instead of telling the solutions outright. But still, it's always better than throwing the game disks against a wall in frustration.
Final Score : 4. Functional, but a few issues tarnish the whole experience here and there.
Story and Setting
Well… this one is tricky. I'm pretty sure the story as a whole made some kind of sense to someone at Coktel Vision (or they were under a lot of drugs), but after having completed the game, I still have little clues about exactly who is OPALE, what the REVUSS is, what the BORGOL is, why the two stupid twins change their height every five seconds, etc… The whole story comes out as quite a mess, and it's not a translation issue as I've tried the french version and it's more or less the same thing.
Then again, the whole "it's magic" works with this universe and the sense of mystery permeates everything, but that's something that enters in another category. As a story in and by itself, it doesn't make a lot of sense. I'd also love to have some kind of confrontation with KRAAL at the end instead of an over-complicated Bond villain scheme to foil. It's like if at the end of Legend of Kyrandia, you just had to disarm a trap instead of confronting Malcolm while you've spent the whole game chasing him.
The same can be said about the places you're exploring. Once you exit the cave complex from underneath OHKRAM's house, you spend your time going in and out of caves and gardens with little coherence. It's not a big deal in itself, as most of the puzzles are self-contained to one screen, but it doesn't make you feel like you're making any progress, more like you're being lugged around random places.
Final score : 3. The story is serviceable, nothing else. You solve puzzles and sometimes, someone talks to you spouting nonsense.
Sound and Graphics
In the visual department, the game suffers from a strange dichotomy. The places you explore are mostly pretty and nicely detailed. The catacombs and temples are creepy enough and the whole "sunsets and moonlight" ambiance suits the magical atmosphere overall. However, I found the monster and creature design to be quite hideous, to be honest. The dragon, the orivors, the mosquitos… I guess a monster is supposed to be ugly, and it's also a matter of taste, but I frankly disliked the overall creature design.
And then there are digitized actors in Halloween masks integrated in all this. If you remove UBI and ORBI little dance, all of them are mostly shot in close-ups and there is a little "cheap" feeling about all this, like a bad short-feature horror film. On the other hand, it's nice enough to have integrated digitized actors in the first place in this day and age.
On the sound department, the whole ambiance is great and the music is pretty nice (even if it could have benefited from a little more tracks because it tends to repeat itself pretty quickly). The sound effects have nice swishes and swooshes that add to the magical theme and all of this is of pretty good quality overall.
Final Score : 5. Pretty good overall but a few hits and misses in the design department. Good music though.
Environment and Atmosphere
Despite the odd design choices and a few elements that I could easily have done without (UKI, ORBI and your little dance, I'm looking at you), if there is something that you can't reproach Ween : The Prophecy for, is its atmosphere. The whole game is full of magic, weird things and every new screen is an invitation to explore and find what new kinds of surprises the game holds for you. The mysterious statues that are found everywhere, the magical beings you're encountering… Add to that the whole sunset/moonlight feeling that you have for most of the game and you have the feeling of a magical world ending.
The use of colors is also to be commended. The whole game is painted in dominant colors (mainly orange and purple) and it really adds to the atmosphere (despite a few clashes here and there).
However (because we always need a however), once again, a few choices go against the whole thing. There is sometimes goofiness that would be more in its place in a Gobliiins game, sometimes alternating immediately with something more mysterious. I think the developers were trying to alternate between mysterious and funny, but it sometimes doesn't work. Managing a "hot and cold" ambiance (like, let's say, the early movies of Tim Burton, for example) is something that's really hard to achieve and I can't help but feel like the developers should have chosen a direction and stick with it instead of trying to alternate between serious and goofy.
Final Score : 6. Great magical atmosphere, marred sometimes by odd goofy moments.
Dialog and Acting
Like I've said earlier, a lot of the exposition text and dialog is pretty nonsensical. Sometimes, the ORACLE or the BORGOL (whatever the latter is) appear and tell you a lot of things, much of it not making a lot of sense… Some other times, OHKRAM appears and tells you you've gained a grain of sand even if you weren't really trying to do so… Most of the interactions with the animals and sentient beings you cross path with are nice without being really noteworthy.
The exception to this rule is URM, your vampire buddy, which is the most competently written character. His lines are sometimes funny, especially when you call him for no reason. He's helping and mocking in equal measures and is a pretty good sidekick.
The rest of the sidekicks are not that great. PETROY spends most of the time telling you "he can't tell you anything about that" when you ask him for help, but sometimes, he drops a clue that's mandatory to understand the puzzles. And I think I've rambled enough on UKI and ORBI, but let's say that every time their ugly mugs appear, you know you're here for what appears like full minutes listening to their stupid dances and songs. And the fact that you can't speed up the dialog doesn't help, especially if you reload to earlier stages of the game you've already suffered through.
The acting in itself is mainly digitized people in Halloween masks waving and doing over the top gestures to make their point, so it's nothing to write home about. At least, the final animation of KRAAL apparently trying to peel his face off is satisfactory enough.
Final Score : 4. Apart for URM, nothing really stands out, and the twins are consistently cringeworthy.
Final Score
So without further ado, the final score equals (6+4+3+5+6+4/0.6) = 47! I'll add one discretionary point for the fact that, despite all its quirks and errors, the whole experience was overall pretty pleasant and I think it'll stick with me as a good memory. And I realize now that doing so gives it the exact same score of the first Gobliiins and five points above The Legend of Djel, so kudos to Coktel for upping their game since Bargon Attack and Emmanuelle!
Congrats on your score guess, Lugh, you earn CAPs!
I'm glad I was able to finally play through this game. I had memories of it for a long time ago and being able to make some real progress on it instead of being stuck on the second screen like the stupid kid I was made me feel like an achievement! See you around and thank you all for your attention and your comments!
CAP Distribution
32 CAPs to MorpheusKitami
10 CAPs to Rowan Lipkovits
Before submitting WEEN to the PISSED rating, we need to study the alternative paths that you can take through the game. I counted two (but I might also have missed something), one using the fish amulet to breathe underwater, and the other attainable by choosing the second door when you exit the temple, just before the ant garden.
 |
| The first hint about an alternative path comes from our friend URM |
Restarting the game, I scan once more every screen to see what I could have missed but don't find anything before the lake itself (I still don't know if I can do anything with the bolt I found on OHKRAM's balcony by the way). Turns out that on the first venom/pollen puzzle, there is a very tiny leave hidden in the corner of the screen.
 |
| Obvious isn't it? |
 |
| More strawberries!!! |
 |
| Do fishermen dream of electric fish? |
 |
| Hey there little buddy, I thought I would only kick your ass much later in the game… |
 |
| Gross |
 |
| Underwater massacre |
 |
| Not for the marine life around here, that's for sure. |
So all in all, this path allows me to avoid the goblin-looking statue with its sword and the Orivor puzzle. I kinda prefer the underwater path as I think the puzzles are more fun. However, I'll probably never go in a lake again in my life now that I've seen what's in it…
Second alternative path : Laser-eye petrifying dinosaurs
After getting the three grains of sand and exiting the temple (and before the two dimwits lost my haversack), I was presented with two doors. The door on the right, that I chose, brought me to the ant garden puzzle where I had to mix a digitalis meal for the ant queen. Selecting the door on the left brings me to another garden, where some kind of huge laser-eyes dinosaur petrifies URM the second we get in!
 |
| We hold the winner in the Coktel Vision teeth contest |
 |
| A grill? Maybe I'll be able to barbecue the wealth of the tide… |
 |
| You know? For kids! |
 |
| Pretty sure that's not how lightning works. |
 |
| Ungrateful fruit-eating bastard |
FINAL RATING
Finally, the moment we've all been waiting for. I tend to be a bit afraid of the PISSED rating because I know this game is fondly remembered by many, but I'll try my best to give it a fair trial.
Puzzles and Solvability
The puzzles are pretty fun overall. The game is a nice suite of inventory-based puzzles and there are a lot of them. However, the game is a bit on the easy side and a few of the puzzles are repetitive without enough differences between them. The room with the fireflies comes to mind where you're supposed to repeat the same tedious steps five times. The other problem is that you stumble a bit too often on the solution instead of wanting to do something and successfully do it. That's usually the issue with games with a single "action" button (as opposed to a list of verbs or a parser), in my humble opinion, but in this kind of games where things happen because "magic", I think that clicking on random things and see what happens is a big part of the fun, like a less chaotic version of Gobliins 2.
When the game avoids being too easy, however, it tends to fall pretty quickly in the "obscure" territory. The dragon battle, for example comes to mind, or the potion mixing.
 |
| Never forget the mighty battle of the cat and the beagle. |
Having two branching paths (even if it's for a short period of time) is great though, and adds replayability, which is still rare enough in adventure games to be underlined.
Final Score : 6. Overall, the puzzle design is solid, pleasant and there are a lot of things to do. A few roadblocks are difficult enough without being unsolvable. The fact that you are too often stumbling in the dark is what prevents it to get a 7, but just quite.
Interface and Inventory
As was noted by Ilmari in his playthrough of Gobliins 2, the interface shares some similarities, which is a novelty for a Coktel Vision game. It's probably because it works. You can combine inventory items, use items on yourself, etc. I think the guys at Coktel were working on something that would be used in all of their games at the time if only because they left the "fast movement" icon in the menu without using it once in the game. It was Coktel's take on something similar to the SCUMM engine, even if not as brilliant.
 |
| There is even a notepad to keep track of whatever seems important (like potion recipes) |
There are other issues as well. Using the glue on the firefly works but not the other way around. Granted, it makes more sense in this order but when you're trying to find the solution to an obscure puzzle, you don't necessarily try the two sides of an item interaction. There is also a little "slugginess" to the whole game (like a few milliseconds too long) that makes the whole thing a little too slow for my taste. But it might also be the emulator I used so I won't take it into account.
The integrated joker system is a nice touch. In a time before the internet, it was always a solution to make some progress in the game if you're completely stuck. I tried it here and there after my playthrough, though, and it could beneficiate from a little subtlety by guiding you on the right path instead of telling the solutions outright. But still, it's always better than throwing the game disks against a wall in frustration.
Final Score : 4. Functional, but a few issues tarnish the whole experience here and there.
Story and Setting
Well… this one is tricky. I'm pretty sure the story as a whole made some kind of sense to someone at Coktel Vision (or they were under a lot of drugs), but after having completed the game, I still have little clues about exactly who is OPALE, what the REVUSS is, what the BORGOL is, why the two stupid twins change their height every five seconds, etc… The whole story comes out as quite a mess, and it's not a translation issue as I've tried the french version and it's more or less the same thing.
 |
| I still want someone to explain to me why my haversack was an owl the whole time… |
The same can be said about the places you're exploring. Once you exit the cave complex from underneath OHKRAM's house, you spend your time going in and out of caves and gardens with little coherence. It's not a big deal in itself, as most of the puzzles are self-contained to one screen, but it doesn't make you feel like you're making any progress, more like you're being lugged around random places.
Final score : 3. The story is serviceable, nothing else. You solve puzzles and sometimes, someone talks to you spouting nonsense.
Sound and Graphics
In the visual department, the game suffers from a strange dichotomy. The places you explore are mostly pretty and nicely detailed. The catacombs and temples are creepy enough and the whole "sunsets and moonlight" ambiance suits the magical atmosphere overall. However, I found the monster and creature design to be quite hideous, to be honest. The dragon, the orivors, the mosquitos… I guess a monster is supposed to be ugly, and it's also a matter of taste, but I frankly disliked the overall creature design.
 |
| The horror… the horror… |
On the sound department, the whole ambiance is great and the music is pretty nice (even if it could have benefited from a little more tracks because it tends to repeat itself pretty quickly). The sound effects have nice swishes and swooshes that add to the magical theme and all of this is of pretty good quality overall.
Final Score : 5. Pretty good overall but a few hits and misses in the design department. Good music though.
Environment and Atmosphere
Despite the odd design choices and a few elements that I could easily have done without (UKI, ORBI and your little dance, I'm looking at you), if there is something that you can't reproach Ween : The Prophecy for, is its atmosphere. The whole game is full of magic, weird things and every new screen is an invitation to explore and find what new kinds of surprises the game holds for you. The mysterious statues that are found everywhere, the magical beings you're encountering… Add to that the whole sunset/moonlight feeling that you have for most of the game and you have the feeling of a magical world ending.
 |
| When the sun in the sky looks like this, it's time to go to the nearest shelter |
However (because we always need a however), once again, a few choices go against the whole thing. There is sometimes goofiness that would be more in its place in a Gobliiins game, sometimes alternating immediately with something more mysterious. I think the developers were trying to alternate between mysterious and funny, but it sometimes doesn't work. Managing a "hot and cold" ambiance (like, let's say, the early movies of Tim Burton, for example) is something that's really hard to achieve and I can't help but feel like the developers should have chosen a direction and stick with it instead of trying to alternate between serious and goofy.
Final Score : 6. Great magical atmosphere, marred sometimes by odd goofy moments.
Dialog and Acting
Like I've said earlier, a lot of the exposition text and dialog is pretty nonsensical. Sometimes, the ORACLE or the BORGOL (whatever the latter is) appear and tell you a lot of things, much of it not making a lot of sense… Some other times, OHKRAM appears and tells you you've gained a grain of sand even if you weren't really trying to do so… Most of the interactions with the animals and sentient beings you cross path with are nice without being really noteworthy.
The exception to this rule is URM, your vampire buddy, which is the most competently written character. His lines are sometimes funny, especially when you call him for no reason. He's helping and mocking in equal measures and is a pretty good sidekick.
 |
| And he really seems to enjoy doing evil deeds, which is a good thing in my book |
The acting in itself is mainly digitized people in Halloween masks waving and doing over the top gestures to make their point, so it's nothing to write home about. At least, the final animation of KRAAL apparently trying to peel his face off is satisfactory enough.
Final Score : 4. Apart for URM, nothing really stands out, and the twins are consistently cringeworthy.
Final Score
So without further ado, the final score equals (6+4+3+5+6+4/0.6) = 47! I'll add one discretionary point for the fact that, despite all its quirks and errors, the whole experience was overall pretty pleasant and I think it'll stick with me as a good memory. And I realize now that doing so gives it the exact same score of the first Gobliiins and five points above The Legend of Djel, so kudos to Coktel for upping their game since Bargon Attack and Emmanuelle!
Congrats on your score guess, Lugh, you earn CAPs!
CAP Distribution
100 CAPs to Alfred n the Fettuc
- Blogger Award - 100 CAPs - for playing through Ween for everyone's enjoyment
- Vohaul Award - 5 CAPs - for letting us know that Infamous Adventures have just released a new version of Space Quest II
- Festive Blogger Award - 60 CAPs - for blogging through A Christmas Adventure with a bonus interlude for everyone's enjoyment
- Classic Blogger Award - 50 CAPs - for blogging through Crash Dive for everyone's enjoyment
- Djel Historian Award - 5 CAPs - For giving us worrying details about DJEL and AZEULISSE real relationship
- Classic Blogger Award - 50 CAPs - for blogging through Growing Pains of Adrian Mole for everyone's enjoyment
- Classic Blogger Award - 50 CAPs - for blogging through The Price of Magik for everyone's enjoyment
- Classic Blogger Award - 50 CAPs - for blogging through The Institute for everyone's enjoyment
- Intermission Award - 20 CAPs - for a 1981 Summary of Med Systems Software
51 CAPs to Vetinari
- True Companion Award - 20 CAPs - for playing along
- Alternative Award - 6 CAPs - for giving hints about the alternative paths
- The Ball and the Cauldron Award - 5 CAPs - for agreeing with my rambling about the copper ball transformation and alerting me about the potion mixing nightmare.
- Psychic Prediction Award - 10 CAPs - for being the closest guesser to the Price of Magic PISSED rating
- Psychic Prediction Award - 10 CAPs - for correctly guessing The Institute's PISSED rating
- True Companion Award - 20 CAPs - for playing along.
- Back Of His Hand Award - 5 CAPs - for sharing his interesting insight on a game that he knows very well
- Djel and Azeulisse Award - 5 CAPs - for guessing that Djel and Azeulisse were probably deadbeat parents
- Alternative Award - 6 CAPs - for giving hints about the alternative paths
- Size Does Matter Award - 5 CAPs - for engaging in a discussion about the two stupid twins real size
- Lost Bet Award (Unaward?) - -10 CAPs - For betting against me that I wouldn't find the answer to the snake puzzle
- Ho Ho Oh... Award - 1 CAP - for remembering a Christmas game we could play... but not knowing we'd already played it
- What's Your Story Award - 20 CAPs - for submitting his answers to our What's Your Story questions
15 CAPs to Lugh
- Psychic Prediction Award - 10 CAPs - for correctly predicting the PISSED rating
- Gene and Dean Award - 5 CAPs - for telling us about the Ween band that might have (or not) something to do with the title change
- 33 and 1/3 Award - 5 CAPs - for the surprising news that games have actually been distributed on vinyl records
- Do Androids Dream of Kindle Paperwhites Award - 5 CAPs - for knowing how reading in dreams works
- Minotaur Award - 5 CAPs - for actually programming a labyrinth while studying
- Do Androids Dream of Kindle Paperwhites Award - 5 CAPs - for knowing how reading in dreams works
- The Doctor Is In Award - 5 CAPs - for giving us chilling details about the digitalis and its effect on rats
- Cold As Balls Award - 5 CAPs - for letting Ilmari know the likely background to the brass monkey puzzle in Price of Magik
- Alchemist Award - 5 CAPs - for finally explaining to me why people bite gold
- Pixel Filtering Award - 5 CAPs - for alerting me that my emulation software was filtering pixels
- Wario Ware Award - 5 CAPs - for appreciating that sometimes you need to pick the nose of a demon dog
- Rutabaga Award - 5 CAPs - for answering Will's question, and adding more historical context to a character from The Institute
- The Shape of Watercraft Award - 5 CAPs - for pointing out that all submarines are long, thin and full of seamen
CX 2690, Pengo!
This episode is all about the very cute Sega arcade game Pengo, as ported by Atari. Not by GCC, which is surprising for this time period. I hope that you enjoy the episode. Next up is Crackpots by Activision. If you have any thoughts on Crackpots, please get them to me at 2600gamebygame@gmail.com by 6 PM EST on 5 February.
Thank you for your patience, and for listening.
Pengo on Random Terrain
Pengo on Atari Protos
Pengo on KLOV
Mark Hahn interview by Scott Stilphen
Mark Hahn's web site
Andrew Fuchs' web site
Courtney Granner on San Jose State web site (features some artwork)
1984 Atari dealer catalog on Atarimania
Jim's hack of 2600 Pengo with Popcorn!
Pengo arcade soundtrack on Youtube
No Swear Gamer 299 - Pengo
Arcade USA - Pengo minisode
Atari 5200 Super Community Podcast - Pengo
Memory Machine Podcast - Christmas Menagerie
Gen X Grown Up Podcast
Thank you for your patience, and for listening.
Pengo on Random Terrain
Pengo on Atari Protos
Pengo on KLOV
Mark Hahn interview by Scott Stilphen
Mark Hahn's web site
Andrew Fuchs' web site
Courtney Granner on San Jose State web site (features some artwork)
1984 Atari dealer catalog on Atarimania
Jim's hack of 2600 Pengo with Popcorn!
Pengo arcade soundtrack on Youtube
No Swear Gamer 299 - Pengo
Arcade USA - Pengo minisode
Atari 5200 Super Community Podcast - Pengo
Memory Machine Podcast - Christmas Menagerie
Gen X Grown Up Podcast
Oceanhorn 2 Demo In Nordic Game 2017!
It is news time! Oceanhorn 2: Knights of the Lost Realm will make a gameplay debut with a playable demo in Nordic Game 2017!
If you are coming to Malmö, head to Epic Games' booth and come and see what we have in store for the new Oceanhorn game! So whether you're a fan, a journalist, a publisher or a fellow game developer – we would be delighted to give you a tour on our game and talk more about Oceanhorn 2.
Oceanhorn 2: Knights of the Lost Realm is a continuation to Oceanhorn: Monster of Uncharted Seas, a million selling action RPG title released for iOS, Mac, Steam, PS4, Xbox One, Android and later this year for Nintendo Switch. Oceanhorn 2 is powered by the unrivaled Unreal Engine 4.
Nordic Game 2017 17-.19.5. in Malmö, Sweden.
http://conf.nordicgame.com/
We could not be more excited about Nordic Game ourselves. In addition to Oceanhorn 2's big moment, Fumito Ueda is also going to be in Malmö! He is the mastermind behind Ico, Shadow of the Colossus and The Last Guardian and we are big fans of his work. It seems like Action RPG's are only now starting to catch up what Shadow of the Colossus did 12 years ago. The carefully crafted spirit of his games and the brilliance of his game designs are a driving force for game developers like us.
Follow with Bloglovin
Thursday, March 5, 2020
Thinking About Game Design
I found this excellent graph in @joebaxterwebb's site. It's a synthetic and great game design lesson to think before gaming development. You can read the complete article HERE.
Sure I'll use in my game designing classes next semester. =)
Thanks, Joe for this great content.
#GoGamers
Sure I'll use in my game designing classes next semester. =)
Thanks, Joe for this great content.
#GoGamers
Wednesday, March 4, 2020
Bimonthly Progress Report For My Twitch Channel, FuzzyJCats, Sept 2 To November 1
FuzzyJCats Twitch Channel
It's going into December, so as usual, I've been procrastinating because there hasn't been any major changes at the level of no longer caring about viewer numbers. Albeit there are times when I have my neuroses and insecurities about numbers, though I was able to get over it after processing with my best friend, Todd.
Because that breakthrough was huge, I felt I wasn't making any monumental improvements, except for taking 15 minute breaks after 2 hours of streaming, which helped me to last an extra 2 hours or so, getting in the much needed practice without fatigue.
I didn't think about taking breaks because I see my streamer friends stream 12 hours straight without any breaks. And the meme in Twitch is stream until you drop to gain viewers. I would stream until I couldn't focus any longer (normally around 2 hours) and stop.
I stopped typing my streamer friends' link as I noted the emotional issues and stress it was causing me. It's so easy to forget to shout someone out that if you don't do so, you're concerned if the person felt slighted. Therefore, I'm only shouting out when being hosted and raided. Further, having excessive shoutouts made the chat harder to read, and I wanted a cleaner interface.
Since this progress report was long overdue and it was in the back of my mind, I was wondering what else can I do in the meantime to take streams to the next level? The answer has to go back to the basics - what do I want to achieve in streaming? Because if I know what I want, I can find out ways to accomplish that goal. Clearly, to "git gud" but specifically what is that?
This is where the cliches of two heads are better than one, and how you can achieve anything with friends ring true, even as it makes everyone cringe when they hear that.
I kept asking the smotpoker887 extraordinaire how can I improve over and over again, but I wasn't sure what I wanted to accomplish in streaming. After hearing my neurotic rant, Smot merely asked, "why not be the best friend you can possibly be" from streaming.
That is what I wanted to accomplish! This is not too hard because you easily get to know your viewers - by remembering the past stream chats and talking to them through any of the social media messaging - so that when they show up, you can ask how is their house coming along (only if they mentioned that publicly to respect privacy).
Because I don't have photographic memory and we miss a lot of chat while streaming, I've been using Chatty to review the chat logs - this helps remind me of what was said in stream so I can get to know my new viewers better. Thanks to Smot, he explained how I can upload these logs to Google drive since it was hard to read on the potato PC. I can then read these logs anywhere I have access to internet.
Because I was working on being more friendly and engaging, I didn't have as much gameplay (this will improve through practice). As soon as I notice, I say hi as soon as a viewer shows up, but I forgot how I was to focus on then going back to what I was talking about, which takes a lot of mental focus.
I wasn't conscious of using that strat last month. Writing this progress report is quite helpful to concretely remind myself to be less tangential - which is why I want to be more timely in these bimonthly progress reports.
The discussion with Smot occurred maybe 2 months ago, and I got lulled into complacency as we all do as I focused on being more engaging with viewers.
However, recently, I wanted to see how I can be more entertaining: being a friend, but being an entertaining friend, which I think will take streaming to the next level, especially as it's an entertainment media.
After having two sleepless nights, I then talked with my best friend Todd who helped me to be more specific in what I mean by being entertaining. I told him that I wanted to be socially engaging. However, he mentioned the eye-opening reality that hearing another person's conversation may not be entertaining. Saying hello to viewers one after the other is not the most riveting or compelling conversation after all and most likely, only interesting to the person you're addressing.
After clarifying what I wanted, he mentioned the radio broadcasting 101 basics. This was rather shocking considering when you search how to be an entertaining Twitch streamer, no one wrote about this, but this is the most basic thing to do as an entertainer! In other words, that is how behind Twitch is compared to other forms of entertainment.
Todd mentioned that I can write down the stories I want to tell and rehearse before each stream. After he said that, my immediate thought was "wow, that's so basic!" even as I didn't think about rehearsing. Because we all hear about how much entertainers rehearse out loud, spending hours a day honing their skills.
I noticed that when I have ideas to say while streaming, I even rehearse it in my mind, but when the time comes, I'm too inhibited to actualize how I envisioned it, and it didn't come out as colorful as I wanted it to and falls flat. I also noticed that I wanted to expand on conversational threads, but I hold back for fear of burdening the listener (growing up in the New England area, children were treated as to be seen but not heard). I know exactly why I do these things, but knowing is the easy part, changing is the challenge.s
Therefore, I have to do "inner work", accepting myself and not caring about "acting the fool" on stream for fear of viewers thinking negatively of me. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) here can work, because what's the worse that can happen if I'm able to rehearse and then act the way I envision the story, uninhibited? The absolute worse is that the viewers think I'm stupid or a loser or bad at acting (which I already know that I am), but who cares? If someone actually writes that and means it (i.e. a true troll, my viewers tease me affectionately on stream) during stream, then ban.
I'm also working on self-compassion - accepting yourself unconditionally - so you don't judge yourself (leads to inhibition ) or others (pinched soul).
Writing down a full-fledged "script" and rehearsing it aloud, practicing may help me to be less uninhibited and perform the way I want it to. I can even force Todd to watch. It'll be an exciting adventure to see if these preparations will significantly improve the entertainment value of the stream!
Goals Achieved:
The How of Happiness Review
It's going into December, so as usual, I've been procrastinating because there hasn't been any major changes at the level of no longer caring about viewer numbers. Albeit there are times when I have my neuroses and insecurities about numbers, though I was able to get over it after processing with my best friend, Todd.
Because that breakthrough was huge, I felt I wasn't making any monumental improvements, except for taking 15 minute breaks after 2 hours of streaming, which helped me to last an extra 2 hours or so, getting in the much needed practice without fatigue.
I didn't think about taking breaks because I see my streamer friends stream 12 hours straight without any breaks. And the meme in Twitch is stream until you drop to gain viewers. I would stream until I couldn't focus any longer (normally around 2 hours) and stop.
I stopped typing my streamer friends' link as I noted the emotional issues and stress it was causing me. It's so easy to forget to shout someone out that if you don't do so, you're concerned if the person felt slighted. Therefore, I'm only shouting out when being hosted and raided. Further, having excessive shoutouts made the chat harder to read, and I wanted a cleaner interface.
Since this progress report was long overdue and it was in the back of my mind, I was wondering what else can I do in the meantime to take streams to the next level? The answer has to go back to the basics - what do I want to achieve in streaming? Because if I know what I want, I can find out ways to accomplish that goal. Clearly, to "git gud" but specifically what is that?
This is where the cliches of two heads are better than one, and how you can achieve anything with friends ring true, even as it makes everyone cringe when they hear that.
I kept asking the smotpoker887 extraordinaire how can I improve over and over again, but I wasn't sure what I wanted to accomplish in streaming. After hearing my neurotic rant, Smot merely asked, "why not be the best friend you can possibly be" from streaming.
That is what I wanted to accomplish! This is not too hard because you easily get to know your viewers - by remembering the past stream chats and talking to them through any of the social media messaging - so that when they show up, you can ask how is their house coming along (only if they mentioned that publicly to respect privacy).
Because I don't have photographic memory and we miss a lot of chat while streaming, I've been using Chatty to review the chat logs - this helps remind me of what was said in stream so I can get to know my new viewers better. Thanks to Smot, he explained how I can upload these logs to Google drive since it was hard to read on the potato PC. I can then read these logs anywhere I have access to internet.
Because I was working on being more friendly and engaging, I didn't have as much gameplay (this will improve through practice). As soon as I notice, I say hi as soon as a viewer shows up, but I forgot how I was to focus on then going back to what I was talking about, which takes a lot of mental focus.
I wasn't conscious of using that strat last month. Writing this progress report is quite helpful to concretely remind myself to be less tangential - which is why I want to be more timely in these bimonthly progress reports.
The discussion with Smot occurred maybe 2 months ago, and I got lulled into complacency as we all do as I focused on being more engaging with viewers.
However, recently, I wanted to see how I can be more entertaining: being a friend, but being an entertaining friend, which I think will take streaming to the next level, especially as it's an entertainment media.
After having two sleepless nights, I then talked with my best friend Todd who helped me to be more specific in what I mean by being entertaining. I told him that I wanted to be socially engaging. However, he mentioned the eye-opening reality that hearing another person's conversation may not be entertaining. Saying hello to viewers one after the other is not the most riveting or compelling conversation after all and most likely, only interesting to the person you're addressing.
After clarifying what I wanted, he mentioned the radio broadcasting 101 basics. This was rather shocking considering when you search how to be an entertaining Twitch streamer, no one wrote about this, but this is the most basic thing to do as an entertainer! In other words, that is how behind Twitch is compared to other forms of entertainment.
Todd mentioned that I can write down the stories I want to tell and rehearse before each stream. After he said that, my immediate thought was "wow, that's so basic!" even as I didn't think about rehearsing. Because we all hear about how much entertainers rehearse out loud, spending hours a day honing their skills.
I noticed that when I have ideas to say while streaming, I even rehearse it in my mind, but when the time comes, I'm too inhibited to actualize how I envisioned it, and it didn't come out as colorful as I wanted it to and falls flat. I also noticed that I wanted to expand on conversational threads, but I hold back for fear of burdening the listener (growing up in the New England area, children were treated as to be seen but not heard). I know exactly why I do these things, but knowing is the easy part, changing is the challenge.s
Therefore, I have to do "inner work", accepting myself and not caring about "acting the fool" on stream for fear of viewers thinking negatively of me. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) here can work, because what's the worse that can happen if I'm able to rehearse and then act the way I envision the story, uninhibited? The absolute worse is that the viewers think I'm stupid or a loser or bad at acting (which I already know that I am), but who cares? If someone actually writes that and means it (i.e. a true troll, my viewers tease me affectionately on stream) during stream, then ban.
I'm also working on self-compassion - accepting yourself unconditionally - so you don't judge yourself (leads to inhibition ) or others (pinched soul).
Writing down a full-fledged "script" and rehearsing it aloud, practicing may help me to be less uninhibited and perform the way I want it to. I can even force Todd to watch. It'll be an exciting adventure to see if these preparations will significantly improve the entertainment value of the stream!
Goals Achieved:
- 15 minute breaks = longer streams = more practice
- No more excessive shoutout commands = less stress, cleaner chat
- Be a friend (first priority) and easier ways of reading chat logs
- Be more diligent about reading chat logs
- Realization of rehearsing scripts
Improvements to be made aside from the above:
- Make sure I work on the bimonthly progress report as it solidifies what I'm supposed to be working on, and forces me to find out what other things I can improve.
- More gaming action and fluency as per usual.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)